Thank you all again! So sorry for the wait but work has been hectic. The next chapter may be longer in the making still :(

This is a slight filler chapter but necessary for plot progression.

Happy Reading!


The thinly veiled hostility and friction in the room, the tremble of poorly suppressed anxiety and apprehension was entirely too intense to be bearable. Her foot tapped nervously under the table, knee bouncing at such a rapid speed that she wasn't entirely sure the tempo was 'human'. Not that she really cared; the tension in the room was so thick a chainsaw wouldn't be able to cut through it.

There was something to be said about witches and their inexplicable need to provoke the one creature on earth that really didn't mind eating every single person they'd ever known or cared about. He'd even eat the milkman; Klaus was nothing if not thorough. And really, it wasn't her fault that the curly-haired witch had decided to get all twitchy because her spell had failed.

Caroline understood the witch's hesitation. Liv had enough to deal with trying to stop Markos and the Travellers, and the fact that her coven seemed to question her and her brother's handling of the doppelgangers. The fact that Liv had even come to her aid at Bonnie's behest was more than Caroline could really ask for. If the witch hadn't tried to contain Mikael's spirit then it was a very real possibility that she wouldn't be here right now. And yet, loathe as she was to do it, Caroline had to ask for more. Liv was their only chance to understand just what it was they were dealing with. She was also their only practicing witch.

As it turned out, Klaus wasn't very diplomatic when it came to asking for help. His little kingdom – or whatever the hell he wanted to call it – back in New Orleans hadn't exactly changed that character flaw about him. Klaus demanded and threatened and then demanded some more. It would have all gone so much smoother if he'd simply let her talk.

But no, Hybrid knew best.

Caroline's foot tapped furiously as she surreptitiously surveyed the four angry figures around the table. Liv looked downright defiant, the lone idiot who knew not to poke the dragon when he was angry. Someone really should have told her about Klaus and the one hundred and one things not to do to provoke him – like say no.

Subtle annoyance seemed to emanate from Rebekah as the blonde original eyed her brother with irritable unease. And Matt just looked – well, the whole 'I'll rip out your innards and hand feed your whole family' line hadn't been exactly pleasant or overly friendly on Klaus' part, despite the charming smile on the hybrid's face. To be honest, Caroline thought his threats were starting to get a little old and long in the tooth.

And then, of course, there was Klaus himself; ever the turbulent, impulsive diplomat whose penchant for violence outweighed his common sense and capability of rational thought. Caroline tried not to think about the last few hours, about Mikael or Stefan, or the way Klaus had carried her back to her dorm, tucked securely in his arms like some wounded little bird, fragile and entirely too breakable for her liking.

She wasn't breakable despite what he thought, despite what all of them thought. She wasn't some damsel in need of a knight. Caroline could take care of herself, albeit not very well at the moment all things considered, but she was doing okay on her own. She didn't mind being the David to Mikael's Goliath. She didn't need Klaus.

Or rather, she didn't want to need him.

Caroline wanted to hate him. A small part of her did, but there was this larger part, this feeling she'd buried beneath layers and layers of contempt and guilt that couldn't help but care, even after years of him making her life – her friends' lives – a living hell. She wanted to hate him so completely, without pause or question, and yet instead she simply understood.

Caroline didn't want to understand why Klaus had done half the things he had. It would take a long time for her to forgive him for Hayley, especially after everything the wolf had put her through. But try as she might, Caroline couldn't resent the child. As long as it stayed out of sight and out of mind, it was a non-issue. Or at least, that was what she told herself.

Klaus being here was just about the worst thing she could possibly imagine. Feigned contempt could only last so long. And he stole her will to say no; there were only so many times a girl could withstand the advances of a man whose charm, whose very scent and salacious grin, brought back memories of broken trees and a bed of fallen Autumn leaves.

I will not lose you.

How could she say no to a man who'd promised to tear the world asunder, to paint it red if he lost her? Such a beautifully ominous and disturbing promise; it made her feel strangely powerful to command such a reaction. She both loved and hated the intoxication of the feeling. Klaus was a potential addiction that would see all her plans fall by the wayside.

She didn't want to need him.

She couldn't need him.

"I would think very carefully over your next words, witch," Klaus' voice threatened lowly, the ghost of a charming smile on his lips.

Caroline closed her eyes in frustration.

No, she didn't want to need him.

Especially not when he was being such a pompous, self-righteous arse.

"Like I told you and your sister and your pretty little blonde girlfriend before," the witch leaned forward, her elbows resting atop the table. Caroline frowned darkly at the curly blonde's choice of words.

She was absolutely not his girlfriend, thank you very much!

"A spell like the one you want me to do is just not possible. I have barely enough energy as it is after trying to contain your father's spirit – a thank you would be nice, by the way – and you want me to block him from her mind?" Liv continued, nodding her head toward Caroline with a sarcastic smile. "Sorry honey but I ain't got that much juice left."

Caroline licked her lips nervously, noticing the dark tint shadowing Klaus' eyes. She hurried to interrupt the conversation, foot still tapping, to steer them down a somewhat safer path. If she knew Klaus, and she did know Klaus, then he would absolutely be stupid enough to piss off the one witch they had in their arsenal. The blonde's brother was pretty much useless, all things considered.

"That's like – totally fine," Caroline chimed in with forced happiness, her bubbly Miss Mystic persona on show. "You should probably save your... juice – or whatever – for more important things like taking down Markos. He is kind of our only lead to fixing the Other Side."

The look on Liv's face, Caroline couldn't quite decipher what it was but it left her with a burgeoning sense of dread in the pit of her stomach. The witch seemed to sense her need, her neurotic sense of desperation and smiled almost softly.

"The Other Side can't be fixed," Liv spoke with such quiet certainty, a sorry expression on her face.

What?

It couldn't be fixed.

Markos' death wouldn't fix the tear he'd made; it wouldn't trap Mikael in the spirit world.

That couldn't be...

Caroline felt a little of her previous hope fade.

"What do you mean it can't be fixed?" Rebekah's voice snapped.

Liv smiled tartly, running a tired hand over her face and turned to face the blonde. "Markos damaged the Other Side beyond repair when he came back from the dead. There is no fixing that kind of damage. Your best bet at stopping your father, if he really is trying to find a way back before the spirit world literally implodes, is by either killing the witch that's helping him or finding a way to tear down the Other Side before he gets through."

It made sense, in a way, that Mikael would have a witch helping him. Markos had used the death of his people to overwhelm Bonnie; that had been his ticket to slip through the cracks, as it were. That type of spell, it would be impossible for any of them to recreate without a willing Traveller to teach them. And even then, Caroline highly doubted that it would work a second time. Not without destroying Bonnie in the process. While that may have been a viable option for Klaus, it was not for her.

Bonnie was off limits.

She watched Klaus' ire rise; the tick in his jaw as his muscles clenched alluded to the building storm within. He was mad. Not crazy mad, not seething mad but mad; the kind of mad that laid waste to entire civilisations. The world, or maybe it was Mystic Falls – she didn't really know – burned in his eyes, the flames of his rage turning his irises an emboldened amber.

"Davina."

He spoke to himself, silent thunder rippling through the gentle lilt in his voice. The name was a promise, a quiet, unescapable promise of death. She should have been afraid for this Davina, whoever she was. Klaus' look spoke volumes; it promised a painful and no doubt awful end for the witch, if the girl was a witch. But Caroline couldn't bring herself to care for the unknown stranger. If she was fool enough to go against Klaus, to side with Mikael, then perhaps she deserved the tsunami headed her way.

Rebekah shook her head vehemently, wishfully hopeful that her brother was wrong. Caroline wondered just who this Davina was. "You can't know that."

"No," Klaus shook his head in admittance. And yet, his face bore the pointed expression of certainty. "But it is a solid guess. I'd wager our little conspirator is in New Orleans, wouldn't you?"

So it was New Orleans that burned in his eyes.

Caroline wondered, not for the first time, what it was about the place that was so appealing. His voicemail all those months ago – it seemed like a lifetime had passed – spoke of art and music and culture. She knew they were the lifeblood of a soul as fractured as his. He drowned himself in beautiful things, wondrous things so full of life and splendour; the kind of things a man could do naught but stand back and admire, wonder at and think how small his life was in comparison.

It was the Louvre, the Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, India's Taj Mahal; she saw him there, in her mind, as clear as day.

New Orleans was so...small a comparison in her mind. She'd have to see the place, to drown herself in its culture to understand just what it was the Originals' were so drawn to. Perhaps, it was the sense of home. Rebekah's story replayed in her mind; the sad tale of a family who'd found peace, who'd built something for themselves, only to see it burn at their father's hands and their hope with it. Perhaps that was it; nostalgia was a powerful mistress when she wanted to be.

"I'll call Elijah," Rebekah frowned, her lips pursed and brow furrowed in displeasure. "Again."

"Look, I'm sorry about your father being a total dickhead," Liv declared, visibly embolden by the presence of her still beating heart. Klaus hadn't killed her yet. There was still time, though. "Your father's not my problem. Stopping Markos is my priority."

Which was quite possibly the worst thing the witch could have said at that given moment.

Klaus couldn't care less about Markos, Caroline knew that. As far as the hybrid was concerned, Markos was an annoyance when paired against Mikael. And quite frankly, she felt the same way. Yes, the warlock meant to undo all magic – whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. It was frightening and his dogged pursuit of her two best friends left little to be desired, but in the grand scheme of things – Caroline would much rather deal with the warlock than a breathing, fully functioning mass murderer who'd promised to chop her into tiny little pieces to get back at his son for a thousand years of sullied honour.

But then again, maybe she was a little bit biased.

"Am I seriously the only one here that doesn't see a problem with that?" Matt's voice interrupted the moment and she turned to him in surprise. He wore the expression of one unamused. He was tired, worried and more than a little bit out of his depth. Caroline could see his unease in the tense line of his shoulders. "Markos is going to do a spell that literally undoes all magic i.e. no vampires, no witches, no werewolves and no hybrids. None of you will be alive to fight Mikael if the Travellers do their spell. You'll all be dead. I'd say that takes priority."

I'll be damned.

She hadn't thought of it like that. She'd been far too distracted to see beyond the initial threat, not its long term effect on her or her friends, not even Klaus or his family. And, judging from Rebekah and her brother's expression – not to mention Liv's conceited and overly pleased smirk – neither had they.

"Well, well, well," Klaus leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms as he assessed Matt with a newfound interest. "It looks like your quarterback has some brains after all, little sister."

Matt frowned at the hybrid's words and Caroline gritted her teeth. Before Rebekah could speak, barbed insult on the tip of her tongue, Caroline found her hand moving of its own accord and, before she could stop herself, she'd hit the hybrid up the backside of his head.

Klaus' body stiffened at the action and she felt a small spark of fear coil in her abdomen. Caroline ignored it and held her head impossibly high, choosing to overlook the fact that she'd just hit the most powerful being on the planet over the back of his head like he was some naughty little school boy.

Caroline smiled sweetly at the dark look he gave her. Klaus wouldn't hurt her. "Play nice."

The hybrid growled in response to his sister's answering chuckle, levelling the blonde with a glacial glare before rounding on her once again. "If you were anyone else –"

"It's a good thing I'm not then, isn't it?" she cut him off with an exasperated roll of her eyes.

Klaus was used to being treated as superior to everyone else. It was why he had such a god-complex and felt the need to be feared, to use violence and terror instead of mercy as his motivational tools of choice. Caroline refused to fear him. He was just a man, underneath it all, who was lonely and bitter and needed a reality check. Yes, he was the Big Bad. But he couldn't just go around killing people and threatening them if he wanted to inspire loyalty; time and history had proven such methods useless.

"Our best bet is to work together on this," Caroline continued, ignoring the intensity of Klaus' gaze to focus on the witch. Liv needed to be won over and if there was one thing Caroline Forbes was good at, it was talking. "Trust me when I say that we want to stop Markos just as much as you do. But you have to realise Liv that Mikael – imagine the worst being you possibly can, the darkest, most vindictive, vile and bloodthirsty monster to ever walk the Earth – he hunted his children for over a thousand years, burning cities to the ground and endless innocents with them. You don't want him walking around out there."

Caroline could see the gears churning in the witch's mind as she contemplated her words. Liv grimaced and then sighed. "What would you have me do?"

Caroline smiled in triumph, turning her overly bright – and slightly smug – smile on Klaus. Playing nice was a much more effective method than the age old 'do-as-I-say-or-die' routine.

"Help us destroy the Other Side," she said, watching as Rebekah and Matt leaned forward. "And we'll help you kill Markos before we do. It's kind of a given anyway."

Markos was after Stefan and Elena. He'd already tried to drain them of their doppelganger blood to do his spell. Thankfully, the warlock's blood supply had been ruined by the Traveller that had helped her friends escape. Maria; she was the girlfriend, or wife – it didn't really matter – of the parasite that had taken over the former love of her life's body. Even though her actions were driven by selfish motives, the woman had bought them some time to regroup.

"Destroying the Other Side means destroying all the souls trapped over there," the witch spoke in a measured tone, her eyes narrowed and critical in their assessment. She was trying to judge their reaction, as if her words held some sort of hidden meaning they were all supposed to understand.

Destroying the Other Side would mean destroying Alaric and Stefan's Lexi, even Enzo. The dead couldn't begrudge the living for trying to survive. Caroline had rationalised and accepted that. Sometimes, in war, sacrifices had to be made.

"They're all being wiped out anyway," Matt spoke softly, a pained expression on his face. He swallowed thickly. "I saw Vicki – she was dragged out by something – and Kol, he said it was only getting worse."

Caroline felt her heart constrict at Matt's words. She hadn't known he'd seen Vicki.

"Kol?" Rebekah and Klaus asked at the same time, both sister and brother wearing equal expressions of confusion, hope and bitterness.

Kol Mikaelson.

Caroline grimaced, realising her mistake, her idiocy for disregarding the buoyant younger brother who'd tried to warn them all, who'd died at Jeremy and Elena's hands, who'd known from the beginning that the Cure and Silas would bring only hellfire and death upon them all.

Matt nodded, reaching out to grab Rebekah's hand. He squeezed it reassuringly. "He'd want you to destroy it. I mean – he was scared but, he'd want you to destroy it if it meant stopping Mikael."

"And you know our brother so well, do you?" Klaus intoned darkly, eyes a beautiful amber.

She remembered his devastation, his rage. How could she possibly forget?

"Klaus don't," she reached for his hand, laying her palm atop his closed fist. She could see his anger, his need for violence bubbling away under the surface. "Please."

Rebekah nodded, offering her brother a bittersweet smile. "Matt's right, Nik. You saw how desperate Kol was to stop Silas. He'd be the same with father and with Markos."

His jaw was clenched, taught with bitter remembrance of his brother's corpse. Caroline licked her lips, thumb rubbing a soothing pattern across his knuckles. She understood the pain and took no comfort in knowing that it had been her friends – and to some degree her – who'd inflicted it. There was no good or evil in the world; it was not as simple as black or white.

It was all grey.

Klaus nodded stiffly at the witch, pushing down the violence in his eyes. His voice was clipped and controlled when he spoke. "Do we have a bargain?"

"You still want me to do the spell to stop your father from invading Caroline's pretty little head, don't you?" Liv asked with a sharp laugh, shaking her head at his nerve to ask for what she'd already denied.

"And from hurting her physically," Matt piped up, his chin raised in stiff determination.

He may have been out of his depth, the token human at a table of supernaturals, but Matt Donovan was nothing if not loyal. Caroline knew she could always count on him to stand up for her, even when she really didn't need it.

"You boys never give up do you?" the witch asked, appreciative of their determination. She looked from Klaus to Matt, taking note of their answering stony resilience. "Alright. Consider it an act of good faith that you won't stab me in the back and I won't stab you," Liv inclined her toward Caroline, a small smile on her lips. "Besides, you're alright for a vampire."

"And you're alright for a witch," Caroline replied, face impassive.

Who didn't have enough juice left twenty minutes ago to even contemplate doing the spell, Caroline thought sourly.

Matt grinned lightly, seeing the anger in her eyes. "Don't let Bonnie hear you say that."

"Speaking of, where is the Anchor?" Liv asked, ignorant to the silent resentment surrounding her.

Caroline licked her lips, starting in surprise as strong fingers curled around her hand. She looked up to see Klaus' answering smirk, his large hand enclosed around her smaller one.

"She took Stefan back to Mystic Falls," Caroline said sharply, trying to tug her hand unsuccessfully free from the hybrid's. He was going to push his luck if he wasn't careful. At Liv's wide, stony glare Caroline continued. "Was that not a smart move?"

The witch threw a barbed smile at her, eyes hard. "Considering that's where Markos is, I'd say not."

Well shit.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Elena was holed up at her parent's lake house with Luke, the witch bitch's useless brother, doing some sort of protection/cloaking spell to keep the Travellers away after what had happened last time. Bonnie had wanted to take Stefan there, while Damon dealt with the whole Tyler/Julian saga and Markos.

Maybe they should have moved them somewhere outside Mystic Falls. The more she thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. Mystic Falls was their home, but it wasn't safe anymore. It hadn't been for a very long time.

"I'll call Stefan after I'm done with Elijah and see if they can move," Rebekah replied nonchalantly, pushing her chair back. "It's all I seem to bloody do anyway."

The blonde original stretched and let out a tired yawn. It was getting late and they were all tired after the day they'd had, Caroline especially. First Stefan, then Mikael, her talk with Klaus and now the little mini-meeting with the witch; Caroline really was exhausted.

Matt moved next, coming to stand beside Rebekah and she couldn't help but notice the glance the two shared. Despite herself, Caroline smiled.

Rebekah turned on the witch, eyes tinted with sharp dislike. "Do get on with the spell before my brother loses his patience and kills you despite his better judgement," Rebekah smiled tartly at her brother. "Not that he really has any, mind you. Your death would put a bit of a chink in our plan now wouldn't it?"

Her message was clear.

Don't kill the witch.

Klaus simply grimaced in response and turned away.

The original made her exit, quarterback in tow and Caroline couldn't help but laugh softly at the picture they painted. A low yawn escaped her and she felt Klaus' hand tug hers. He nodded at the witch, pulling Caroline to stand.

"Come on love," his voice was beautifully soft and soothing, his hand warm as it pulled her toward the exit. Liv reluctantly but obediently followed. "Let's get you to bed."

She saw his smirk and sighed, too tired to come up with some sharp retort at his choice of words.

Picture of innocence, her arse.


Love it or hate it, let me know.

Personally this isn't one of my favourite chapters, so hopefully it's not as terrible as I'm imagining it to be.

Till next time ;)